Why can the Dems not prevail on an issue with both facts and morality on their side and the worst president in history sitting in the White House? Let the Republicans shut down the government—if memory serves, it’s not exactly a vote-getter. Then stage a press conference every day with a different expert.

And economists talking about how investing the same sum in green energy would generatefour times as many jobs as it would in dirty energy. What better time to sell the public on jobs than now?

In their soundbytes, the Dems are still trying to sell us on crazy-as-a-fox routine C: Listen, Obama will win, and will reinstate the drilling ban, so this is all just a bluff. But who wants to vote for a party that can’t win a fight when they’ve got all the muscle on their side and all the other team has is an expensive PR machine to ventriloquize a lot of chest-beating BS? And is it a wise move to bet the fate of the planet on the outcome of this election with polls showing a close race?

It may sound shrill, but our current energy plan is absolutely essential to avoiding the worst of climate change. Once we dump billions of dollars into developing expensive, carbon-intensive energy like the oil shale okayed in the House bill (which produces 3-4 times as much carbon emissions as oil), we won’t be able to unspill the carbon emissions, nor will we be able to get the money back to invest it in renewables. Yet, eventually, we are going to have to invest in emissions reductions. (Which will boost the economy.) The longer we wait, the higher the price tag and the less effective the cure. If the Dems don’t have the stomach for this fight, they might as well just go home.